1. It's not linked to from any other page (!). Not the Main page, not the LXF Wiki Guidelines, nada. And those pages are protected so I can't add links on them. Nice one, guys. (I did just add a link on the Community Portal).

2. All the stuff I have written is now copyright of Future Publishing. Fine (all the stuff Linux kernel junkies write is effectively Linus's copyright). But what rights do I have to re-use my own works? The notice is very vague about this. Must I apply to FP for permission?

3. I have to say, some restrictions that the notice does mention appear to run against the spirit of Free Software. Has anybody given this as a reason for not getting involved? I also have to say, that these restrictions are making me think twice. I know that there is some great stuff up there that has been harvested from the magazine, but the hard lesson of history is: if you want community participation in Great Stuff, don't bind it up in non-free copyright conditions.

"Klinger, do you know how many zoots were killed to make that one suit?" — BJ Hunnicutt, 4077 M*A*S*H

All contributions made to this site, as comments or forum posts, reviews, links or other words and images are assumed to be the property of the person submitting it. All submissions are accepted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide right to publish and to license others to do so.

The problem with using the Forum's free license is that a lot of articles from LXF have been posted to the Wiki, and these may be copyright of various people who may or may not be willing to let their stuff get copied again from the Wiki. Setting aside the wisdom of posting them before clarifying the licensing, these articles cannot be freely copied without the owner's consent.

OTOH I would like my stuff to be freely licensed, so IMHO the copyright notice needs to take on board that things have got a bit messy.

"Klinger, do you know how many zoots were killed to make that one suit?" — BJ Hunnicutt, 4077 M*A*S*H

So why couldn't you have a catchall "Unless otherwise specified all documents remain the property of the person submitting them" declaration, then the documents that are lifted from LXF could carry a Future Publishing copyright notice.

MartyBartfast wrote:So why couldn't you have a catchall "Unless otherwise specified all documents remain the property of the person submitting them" declaration, then the documents that are lifted from LXF could carry a Future Publishing copyright notice.

That "unless otherwise stated" sounds a good one. And the LXF copyright notice could be simply done as a template.

But I don't think allowing individual edits to remain copyright of the author is sane: obtaining permission to copy a much-edited article would be virtually impossible. Rather, the content should be assigned to Future Publishing (as now) but under a free license - maybe Creative Commons or something?

"Klinger, do you know how many zoots were killed to make that one suit?" — BJ Hunnicutt, 4077 M*A*S*H

OK, this is what we've done: if you submit material to the LXF Wiki, it will be assigned joint-copyright with Future Publishing. So, Guy owns all his contributions and can do what he wants with them (eg paste them elsewhere), but we also own them (eg for putting on a DVD).

Maybe we can CC/GFDL the whole lot sometime in the future, but for now this is the simplest approach and retains the value of our from-magazine content.